According to Deputy District Attorney Murat Ozgur, the jury of ten women and two men agreed today that 51-year old Genaro Garcia Fernandez of San Martin was guilty of committing 17 counts of various sexual crimes, including the aggravated sexual assault and repeated rape of a female family member over a period of roughly a decade, since the woman was four or five years old. The victim is now 27 years old.
Fernandez's son, Antolin Garcia-Torres, has been charged with murder with the special circumstance of committing the murder during a kidnapping in the March 16 disappearance of Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar. He is being held without bail in Santa Clara County Jail.
Fernandez was found guilty of 17 felony counts, all but one of the 18 with which he had been charged. The count on which Fernandez was not convicted related to a second victim, Ozgur said.
Ozgur said that although the victim had waited years after being sexually assaulted to notify law enforcement, a confession obtained by police during a phone conversation between Fernandez and the victim had played a key role in the jury's decision.
In the police surveyed conversation regarding the sexual incidents, Ozgur said, "he explained that 'it was for the pleasure of the two.'"
Fernandez will face a life sentence in prison. He is scheduled to appear in the Morgan Hill Superior Courthouse.
The jury in the case was not informed about Fernandez's connection to Garcia-Torres.
Fernandez was convicted on five charges of lewd acts with a child under 14, three counts of forcible sexual penetration, three counts of forcible rape, one count of sodomy, one count of forcible oral copulation, and four counts of aggravated sexual assault on a child under 14.
